Are We Educating Terrorists?

Last week, shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing suspects were identified as having ties to Chechnya, the president of that counry, Ramzan Kadyrov, came out and made a statement.  He obviously wished to ensure that no connection was made between possible Muslim terrorists within his own borders and the attacks in the US.  Within his remarks was the following passage: 

“They were raised in United States, and their attitudes and beliefs were formed there.  It is necessary to seek roots of this evil in America.”

Most of in the US like to point the finger overseas.  We assume that Muslim terrorist require assistance from Muslims in the Middle East or in this case Eastern Europe.  We make the assumption that there must have been a corrupt cleric who preached the wickedness of the western lifestyle in order to draw man into the radical side of terrorism.  What if that is only part of the story?  Could it be possible that our own education system works hand-in-hand with the preaching of these clerics to indoctrinate Muslims and non-Muslims alike to dislike the US?

Over the last 50 years our education has morphed from one that built up the United States as a superpower wishing to bring the freedom to the world, to a system that forces students to dwell on the darkside of US history.  Our students spend weeks studying the about Native Americans that were living at complete peace and harmony with nature until they were slaughtered by Europeans.  The Constitution is seen as a document produced by white men, that restricted minorities and is outdated by today's standards.  February has become a month to learn that the Civil Rights struggle is just as hard today as it was 60 years ago.  Finally around tax time, we are not educating our children about responsible government, but instead, they study how rich people have created poverty and must be taxed by the government in order to solve poverty.  When foreigners are placed into this system, what values to we expect them to leave with?

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by all accounts grew up in this system.  He grew up to understand that an imperialistic society of greedy white men are responsible for America’s poor and many other evils perpetrated around the world.  If he had any inclination to terrorism, our structure of education would have made a transition from child to jihadist easier to justify from a morality perspective after being given this twisted view of American history.  If he needed an enemy to fight against, our education system gave him one.

I do not hold the view that our education system is creating terrorists.  I am making that claim that our education system has altered course from one that showed its students US exceptionalism to one that believes the US is just another in a long line of expansionist governments forcing weaker countries to submit.  I am saying that our children grow up with a sadistic view of America.  These boys were helped along in their beliefs of a greedy bullying American culture by our own American education system.

So what if we continued to teach American exceptionalism?  Would they have still bombed the Boston Marathon?  I can’t answer that.  However, it becomes increasingly less likely that a child understanding the benefits to our planet the US has offered, understanding that in our country a single white mother can raise a black boy to be president and understanding that we have sacrificed more in money and body count for peace in other countries than any of the other world nations; might generate a deeper sense of pride for the country they lived for a decade.